


When I Was Alive

by HumanError



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Caring Sherlock, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional John, Established Relationship, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Graphic descriptions of injury, Hurt/Comfort, John Whump, John is a Mess, John-centric, Kissing, M/M, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, POV John Watson, PTSD John, Poor John, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Supportive Sherlock, soldier John, unexpected death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 03:53:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3595326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HumanError/pseuds/HumanError
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was difficult moving back to London by myself with a fucked shoulder and a psychosomatic limp. The PTSD was just the cherry on top. How I managed to keep my gun, I don't know. I was going to use it on that day, that day that I met him. And it wasn't even a matter of maybes. My mind was set because how could it get better? I had absolutely nothing to live for. Even my dad and sister didn't want anything to do with me. I didn't want anything to do with them. It's not as if I had anyone else to be with.</p><p>But then I was taken into that bloody hospital and met that bloody man and I just knew, I knew what would happen next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I Was Alive

When I was five years old I had to watch my mother die of cancer. It was awful and confusing but I was only little and just did not understand what was going on. So I carried on, going through everyday with my Dad and sister. It was normal and I survived.

* * *

 

When I was seventeen I witnessed my best friend being run down in a hit and run. She was crossing the road, a photo frame in her hand of the two of us together. On the back there was a message that read:

_Dear John,_

_Happy Birthday to my gorgeous best friend. May we make many more happy memories as each day passes!_

_Have a great day,_

_Kaylei xx_

I sobbed uncontrollably as I supported her head in my arms, knowing that it was already too late to save her. 

We never found out who it was that killed her.

* * *

 

It was a year later that I joined the army, much to my father's displeasure. You'll get yourself bloody killed. He had said as he gulped down another bottle of alcohol, sneering at me, eyes filled with disgust. He changed after mum died. So did Harry. And not for the better.

* * *

 

I went on my first tour of Afghanistan when I turned 22 years old and I had the time of my life. The adrenaline of it all made me feel alive, like there was no stopping me. Afghanistan changed me. I didn't have to worry about looking after an alcoholic sister and father. There was no one I was attached to.

That is until I stumbled upon Major James Sholto and my life flipped around, yet again. For the first time since Kaylei I felt that there was someone to live for. He became my rock, my best friend. My lifeline.

* * *

 

It was three weeks in to my second tour and James and I managed to sneak out of camp one evening, down to the stream a couple of miles away. We laid down, our gazes shifting to the stars. And it was so, so beautiful. We had our moment where the bombings and the shootings were forgotten and it was just us, two men in a world that didn't stop to think about anything except fighting.

That night he became more than my colleague, more than my friend. He became my first love. We would die for each other.

* * *

 

We didn't have enough time. We should have had more but we didn't, we couldn't.

Because one moment everyone was fine and it was just another simple drive. Everything was going smoothly until it wasn't.

He was in the vehicle in front of me, with three of our fellow soldiers. Rheon was driving, leading us all. Suddenly we were swerving, trying to avoid the overturned vehicle in front of us.

I remember the sound of the explosion, the way it came out of nowhere and pounded into my ears. We were overturned and there were men shouting, screaming for help, for a medic.

But then I realised that everyone in my car was fine and it was our other men who had been caught in the landmine, not us. Immediately I was moving, commanding others to do the same aswell.

I managed to escape the car within a few seconds but once I had exited my senses were attacked with the putrid odour of burning rubber and burning flesh.

"Peters! Attend to Rheon and get Walters and Dawson to help with Doors and Grimes! Get fucking moving!"

I ran as fast as I could, careful where I placed my footing and collapsed down next to Sholto, my gun beside me. Soldiers from the vehicle behind us were making their way over, guns raised.

"James, can you hear me?" I asked, trying to remain calm but failing. My voice was frantic as I spoke to the man beneath me, trying to get his attention. There was blood pooling on his chest and it didn't take an idiot to realise that he had been penetrated by shrapnel.

He didn't respond and I began to panic. Pressing my fingers to his neck, I sought out his pulse, finding one but only faintly.

His whole left side was absent of skin, most of it burnt and peeled away, including his face. I shook my head, not willing to accept this because how could this possibly be happening?

Behind me I could hear the sounds of bullets being fired from machine guns, ripping through the air and into the bodies of our enemies. I snapped on some gloves and began applying pressure to his chest wound using a thick gauze swab from my medical kit.

"Don't die on me, James. Don't you fucking dare. Please don't."

Tentatively, I touched my two fingers to his pulse point again, hoping for some miracle that they would be beating beneath my fingertips but they weren't and my whole world collapsed.

"Wake up James. Wake the fuck up, come on for fuck's sake! Wake up!" I screamed, over and over again, my fists scrunched tightly into his uniform. The smell of the cindered flesh hit my nostrils again and I realised that it was his flesh, his body that had been burned. I lurched to the side of him and threw up, over and over again. Someone put their hand on my shoulder and started tugging me backwards, ordering me to go over to the helicopter that I hadn't even acknowledged had arrived.

* * *

 

When I was shot, I felt relief. I finally thought  _this is my time to die._ I would get to be with mum, with Kaylei, with James because they were the three most important people in my life and they had gone and surely I should have been allowed to be with them?

I went M.I.A. When the bullet ripped through my left shoulder, meshing together my skin, muscle and bone, I didn't believe anyone would find me. I still don't understand how they found me, laying in the dirt as I bled out. The sun was absolutely scorching- you would think that my main focus would be the pain, the absolute agony, but it wasn't. It was the Afghanistan heat, the overwhelming, treacherous heat that for some reason I welcomed as I was dying out.

The last thing I remembered was Dawson kneeling over me, sweat coating his forehead, before ripping my uniform open and pressing his hands to my wound and that's when I finally let out the cries, the screams. But I know it wasn't because of the physical pain.

* * *

 

You would think that I would have become numb to the emotions I felt after losing someone. That it would get easier as time went on. But it didn't. It still hasn't. The pain intensifies every single fucking time it happens. This time was't any different.

* * *

 

I love him so much. It is so bloody difficult to explain how much love I have for him. Had for him. After James I didn't think it was possible, but it was. My God it was. 

Sherlock Holmes, that crazy, genius man. It was so easy to love him. He was my fire within a world that had been so dark for so long.

It was difficult moving back to London by myself with a fucked shoulder and a psychosomatic limp. The PTSD was just the cherry on top. How I managed to keep my gun, I don't know. I was going to use it on that day, that day that I met him. And it wasn't even a matter of maybes. My mind was set because how could it get better? I had absolutely nothing to live for. Even my dad and sister didn't want anything to do with me. I didn't want anything to do with them. It's not as if I had anyone else to be with.

But then I was taken into that bloody hospital and met that bloody man and I just knew,  _I knew_ what would happen next.

* * *

 

I was so frightened the first night we slept together and it was so stupid. He was my first partner since James and the thought absolutely terrified me.

"It's alright, John." He whispered in my ear and the way he said my name made me tremble. I unbuttoned Sherlock's shirt, my fingers brushing against the dark hair on his chest and leant forward, pressing my lips to his in a kiss filled with so much want and need. Because I did need him, I needed him so much that it hurt.

In one slow movement he pulled my jumper over my head, exposing my stomach, my chest, my scar. When I saw his eyes glance towards my shoulder, I inwardly cringed. Sherlock seemed to realise this and lowered his head forward, capturing my lip between his teeth before darting his tongue out and sealing our lips once again. "Don't be afraid, John."

And I wasn't. Not anymore.

We stripped ourselves of our remaining clothes until it was just us two, our bodies slick with sweat, breaths coming out in short, ragged gasps.

The things he did to me, the way he moved, how he was so gentle, so considerate. I craved him, his whole being. He was like a drug to me- the one thing I needed to keep going. The fact that he felt the same way made me feel things I'd never felt before.

For the first time in years I was glad to be alive.

* * *

 

Sherlock proposed to me, two years later. It was just after a case in which a moronic criminal decided that it would be wise to try and kidnap me. Obviously Sherlock wouldn't allow that and the criminal ended up in hospital with a broken pelvis, three cracked ribs and a split lip. Plus a four year prison sentence.

We made it up the seventeen steps to the flat and within a second of the door slamming shut, Sherlock was pinning me against the wall of 221B Baker Street and kissing me fervently, grabbing my hips with his hands and pulling me into him.

"Bedroom?" I managed to breathe out and suddenly Sherlock had taken my hand in his own and was somehow simultaneously undressing me as we made our way to the bed.

***

His moan was filthy as he released himself into my body, gasping out my name. I squeezed my legs around him, pulling him down so his body was resting on top of my own. My fingers made my way to his head and I scrunched my fingers into his hair, smiling as I adjusted him so his forehead was pressing against mine, our breaths mingling in the air between us.

"I love you, Sherlock Holmes." I said, my voice catching on his name. "I love you."

The detective returned the smile, his gaze lingering on my lips before he dipped his head forward, trailing his lips over my neck, across my jaw, anywhere he could reach.

Sherlock's voice was so quiet when he said the next three words that I almost missed them. "Marry me, John."

Carefully, I moved my hand so that it was cupping his cheek, caressing my thumb just below his eye. I nodded, too shocked to be able to form words. I could feel a tear trickle down my face and I finally managed to mutter out the word 'yes'.

The look on his face when I told him that was so beautiful, so gorgeous, so Sherlock.

* * *

 

I'm 38 years old when I lose him, my husband. He doesn't leave the world spectacularly, dramatically. He doesn't leave how I know he would have wanted to go, on a case or with me.

It almost doesn't seem real because how could something like this happen? How could he go to sleep one night, wrapped in my arms, safe, and not wake up the next day? 

How was it possible that he was so content as we drifted away into our dreams together only to not be able to tell me his dreams when he woke up?

"Sherlock, darling?" I asked as I tried to budge him over so I could make us some breakfast but he wouldn't move. "Sherlock?" I say again, because stupidly I thought that maybe he was just really tired and needed some rest.

And that's when the realisation dawns on me.

I beg him. I beg him to wake up, to do something. I shout and I scream and I tug at his body because  _he has to wake up. He can't leave me. He can't leave me alone._

But no matter how hard I try he doesn't move, doesn't open his eyes and tells me that he loves me again. He doesn't hold me as I wake up screaming about another nightmare because it isn't a nightmare, not this time.

"No, Sherlock, God no. Wake up. Please, I can't lose you Sherlock. Please don't, don't do this." My entire body is shaking and I don't know what to do, there's nothing I can do.

And he's gone, just like that. My lifeline, my best friend, my husband, my everything.

He is gone and so is mum and Kaylei and James. They're all gone. And I'm still here.

* * *

 

I haven't looked at my gun in years. I didn't need to.

* * *

 

"I'm coming home," I say as I look to the stars. It's the middle of the night- Sherlock hasn't even been dead for 24 hours. "I'm coming home," I say. And just like that, I am finally gone aswell.


End file.
